Trey Parker and Matt Stone recently weighed in on the pending Paramount-Skydance merger, calling it a “shitshow” that’s “fucking up South Park.” As of writing, we have no reason to dispute that assessment.
In addition to delaying the upcoming Season 27 premiere, the merger has thrown the show’s streaming future into flux. Paramount+ was supposed to become the “exclusive” home for South Park this month, following the expiration of Parker and Stone’s previous deal that found the show being licensed to HBO Max.
But Skydance Media reportedly found the distribution fees, totaling around $200 million, to be “too rich. Heating up the streaming wars even further, the South Park creators threatened legal action against soon-to-be Paramount Global president Jeff Shell for allegedly interfering in negotiations with rival companies including Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery.
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In some international markets, however, Paramount+ was already the “exclusive” home of South Park — until now.
Earlier today, a fan in the U.K. posted on Reddit, noting that the show was “randomly gone” from Paramount+. Since HBO Max isn’t a thing across the pond, Paramount+ was the only streaming platform carrying the show.
International subscribers can still watch the South Park “specials,” including The End of Obesity and, fittingly, The Streaming Wars because they were, somewhat controversially, produced specifically for Paramount+. But the back catalogue of the show has now unceremoniously disappeared à la Chef.
The same goes for Canada, where the entire series was just abruptly pulled with no warning, meaning that Canadian subscribers who wanted to watch South Park will now have to make do with assorted Star Trek series and the Frasier reboot. If only the country’s royal family could do something about it.
Paramount+’s social media accounts haven’t made any official announcements so far. Unless they buried subliminal messages about the South Park situation in this trailer for the new LL Cool J docuseries
Screenshots of correspondence between angry fans and Paramount+’s customer service team seems to suggest that the show has “come to the end of the window” in which they “have the rights to carry it.”
This could mean that Parker and Stone have secured a new international streaming deal on a platform like Netflix. Although, this whole thing has been such a mess, I wouldn’t even be surprised if they went and brought Quibi back from the dead and then made it the new “exclusive” home of South Park.
